Author: Tim Good
Boat: Shadowfax (43)
Ok so this is not limited to Seastreams but most of the 43’s have quite a few power hungry down-light bulbs in the deck saloon. 10 in ours to be precise. I don’t know exactly how much power they used before we replaced them but it was a lot. Approx 25w x 10.
Since then I’ve replaced with an LED Alternative. When doing research I wanted:
- Same brightness as the old ones (very)
- No warm up time
- Warm light. Not horrible blue light
- Plug and go into existing fitting (max 25mm)
The solution was something called a G4 9 SMD 2835 Planar Disc Lamp. They are actually quite common now and range from around £1.50 to £8. Ours were around £6 each from www.boatlamps.co.uk and they kick out about 145 lumens which is quite a lot for only a 1.2W bulb. All 10 in our saloon take the same power as one of the old ones! They have a G4 fitting and work from 12V so no additional transformers required. Just plug and go.